Contemporary Canadian Literature with a Distinctly Urban Twist

Anvil Press

I Am Billy the Kid

I Am Billy the Kid

  • canada orders CAD $24.95
  • us orders US $18
  • world (outside Canada/US) orders US $18

 
History tells us that the short and violent life of William Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, ended at the hand of Pat Garrett on the moonless night of July 14, 1881. But I Am Billy the Kid tells a different story, straight from Billy himself. This revisionist history seen through the lens of a twenty-first century sensibility features the picaresque hero we thought we knew and the unexpected one that we don’t: a fearless and determined young woman who is in no mood to be saved and would much prefer exacting her own revenge. 
 
Billy has been in an alcoholic haze since a failed attempt to escape notoriety by faking his own death. By 1915, his fame has only increased, and when word of a possible ruse leaks out, Billy finds himself once again on the run. He agrees to follow his elder brother Joseph north from New Mexico Territory, to possible sanctuary in Canada. Billy and Joseph encounter Turner Wing, a young woman with a fierce sense of self-determination and the skills with a gun to back it up, and her father, a man with a past and a burlap sack over his head due to a significant facial disfiguration. They are in desperate search of Turner’s sister, who has been abducted by a pair of marauding thieves. Billy and Joseph know the truth about the girl’s fate and, following their own code of honour, form an uneasy alliance with the Wings to avenge her death.

I Am Billy the Kid is Michael’s sixth published book.


  • Publication: July 1, 2022
  • ISBN: 978-1-77214-188-7
  • Pages: 410 pp.
  • Size: 5.75 x 8.75 inches

Michael Blouin has been a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award, the bpNichol Award, the CBC Literary Award and his first novel won the 2009 ReLit Award. He has been the recipient of the Lilian I. Found Award, the Diana Brebner Award and the Lampman Award. His 2019 novel Skin House won the 2020 ReLit Award for Best Novel and has been included on the NASA/Astrobotics Peregrine Mission to the Moon as well as the upcoming SpaceX lunar landing.

Books by Michael Blouin